NY’s Health Commissioner not an AMA member

Here’s an interesting factoid about New York’s newly minted Health Commissioner Nirav Shah (he was confirmed in the Senate a few minutes ago): Despite what one supporter said was a veritable boatload of credentials as well as written peer review articles and studies to his name, he belongs to neither the American Medical Association nor the State Medical Society.

While membership in such groups might have been assumed years ago for doctors or more specifically for doctors who are top state officials, that’s no longer the case. Shah’s predecessor Richard Daines also wasn’t a member of those groups, according to their records.

The lack of membership may be a sign of the times, said Art Levin, executive director at the Center for Medical Consumers, a watchdog organization, who said many physicians are now more involved in specialty societies or certification boards than the AMA, which he said was more akin to a trade group.

“He would not be atypical of a younger very specialized research academician who would find little of interest in the AMA.”

At least one Senator on the Finance Committee, which interviewed Shah earlier expressed surprise when a reporter told him that Shah wasn’t an AMA member.

Niskayuna’s Hugh Farley assumed he was in the AMA but when he checked the doctor’s CV the organization wasn’t listed although Shah belongs to other groups involved in medical research.

Farley then confided that he dropped his bar association membership early on due to the cost. “I only was member of the American Bar Association for the first couple of years I was a lawyer. It was so expensive,” he said.